Bradford Literature Festival’s Syima Aslam announced as member of new creative industries taskforce
A new taskforce, led by Baroness Shriti Vadera and Sir Peter Bazalgette, will help deliver a plan to grow the creative industries. CEO and Artistic Director of the Bradford Literature Festival, Syima Aslam, was announced as one of the members of the taskforce.
Leaders of organisations including Creative UK, the British Fashion Council and the Royal Shakespeare Company, plus academics, investors and tech entrepreneurs, have joined a new taskforce to help inform the Government’s strategy to unlock growth in the UK’s highly valued creative industries, one of the eight growth-driving sectors of the Industrial Strategy.
Bradford Literature Festival (BLF) is one of the top three largest literature festivals in the UK and ‘Europe’s Most Diverse & Inclusive Arts Festival’. Renowned globally as an innovator within the culture sector, BLF forges international partnerships, curating diverse, innovative, and inclusive programmes.
At the heart of BLF is a commitment to artistic brilliance and contemporary discourse, combining renowned literary figures with up-and-coming voices to curate dynamic programmes that spark dialogue and delight audiences. The BLF programme of events includes annually recurring strands including The Brontë’s, Poetry, World Affairs & Politics, Hockney, Global Futures, Comicon, and Film and Comedy. BLF 2024 welcomed 453 artists to West Yorkshire, including acclaimed national figures such as Miriam Margolyes, Shaparak Khorsandi, Sara Pascoe, Lemn Sissay, Ruby Wax, Mary Beard, and Corinne Bailey Rae.
The taskforce, announced November 2024, will work towards the development of an ambitious and targeted Creative Industries Sector Plan, helping to provide growth as part of the Government’s Plan for Change and deliver on our decade of national renewal.
The plan will be published in the spring, alongside the Industrial Strategy, and will set out new policies and government interventions that will help to deliver a further boost to the creative industries’ potential for spreading growth and opportunity for all.
The creative industries have been identified as a key growth-driving sector in the Government’s Industrial Strategy, and will form a central part of the government’s mission to grow the economy.
The taskforce will help to ensure that the Creative Industries Sector Plan is designed in partnership with business, devolved governments, regions, experts and other stakeholders.
At their initial meeting, the taskforce discussed how to work with the Government to inform the development of the Sector Plan, with a focus on policy issues identified in the Industrial Strategy Green Paper, including crowding in investment, access to opportunity, people and skills, and supporting innovation.
The taskforce will work closely with the wider Creative Industries Council (CIC), from which several of its members are drawn.
The members of the Creative Industries Taskforce are:
- Baroness Shriti Vadera (co-chair), chair, Royal Shakespeare Company, and future CIC co-chair
- Sir Peter Bazalgette (co-chair), current CIC co-chair
- Francesca Hegyi OBE, CEO, Edinburgh International Festival
- Prof Hasan Bakhshi MBE, director, Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre
- Caroline Norbury OBE, CEO, Creative UK
- Stephen Page, executive chair, Faber
- Caroline Rush CBE, CEO, British Fashion Council
- Prof Christopher Smith, CEO, AHRC
- Tom Adeyoola, co-founder, Extend Ventures, and non-executive board member, Channel 4
- Lynn Barlow, academic and TV producer
- Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire
- Philippa Childs, deputy general secretary, Bectu Sector of Prospect
- Saul Klein OBE, investor and member of the Council of Science and Tech
- Sir William Sargent, chair and co-founder, Framestore
- Prof Jonathan Haskel CBE, professor of economics, Imperial Business School
- Syima Aslam MBE, founder and CEO, Bradford Literature Festival